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Literate practices in a modern credit union1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Deborah Keller-Cohen
Deborah Keller-Cohen
Affiliation:
English Composition Board, and Program in Linguistics, University of Michigan
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Abstract

Modern bureaucratic institutions are notorious for producing documents that are difficult to understand. Much attention has been paid to the language of these materials; little is known about the contexts in which these documents are used and their potential effects on functional literacy. Drawing on research in a midwestern credit union, this paper discusses several factors that seem to characterize how and why credit unions and their members use credit union documents: the characteristics of document availability, the structure of interactions in which documents are used, attitudes and beliefs about the documents, and the functions of documents. (Literate practices, conversational analysis, bureaucratic institutions, politics of language, plain language movement).

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 1987 , pp. 7 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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